The Eagles needed Saquon Barkley to get a lot of touches to win their season opener over the Packers in Brazil on Friday night.
So Barkley got a lot of touches — 26 to be exact.
It’s just the fourth time in the Nick Sirianni Era that an Eagles player has had 25 or more touches in a single game. D’Andre Swift did it against the Vikings last year and Miles Sanders did it against the Jaguars in 2022 and the Jets in 2021.
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Barkley, 27, was fantastic in the opener. He had 24 rushes for 109 yards and 2 touchdowns and caught 2 passes for 23 yards and another score. The Eagles gave Barkley a contract this offseason worth around $13 million per season and Barkley looked like he’s worth every penny.
But it’s also important that Barkley still looks fresh in December and January.
So do the Eagles plan on managing his workload?
“Yeah, you do everything you can do to win each football game,” Sirianni said on Monday. “And so once the game is in the flow, you think about how you're going to win that game. And whether that's Saquon getting 20-whatever touches, whether that’s us throwing the ball to A.J. (Brown), DeVonta (Smith), Dallas (Goedert), whatever it may be.
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“You try to manage them more within practice. So something like that, with Saquon having that many touches, we'll have a plan for that this week in practice where we can take some of the load off him there. Every time you go into the game — every game is so important in the NFL that it's hard to say, and when he's got a hot hand like that too — to say, ‘Hey, you don't want to keep giving him the ball.’ You're trying to win every single game that you play.”
Friday’s game was the 15th game in Barkley’s career with 25+ touches. Even though he had somewhat of a down year in 2023, he had 25+ touches in three games and in 2022 did it four times.
Since he entered the NFL in 2018, just six running backs have had more games with 25+ touches: Derrick Henry (30), Christian McCaffrey (26), Josh Jacobs (24), Joe Mixon (19), Dalvin Cook (19), Ezekiel Elliott (17).
So Barkley is capable of being a workhorse. But you just worry about his ability to stay healthy with all this work.
Because it’s not like Barkley is avoiding hits all the time. He’s a 233-pound running back who excels after contact. We saw that in action on Friday night in Brazil too.
Of Barkley’s 109 yards on the ground in the opener, 86 of them came after contact, which means he averaged 3.58 yards after contact per attempt, per PFF. For reference, Swift averaged 2.44 last season and had just one game higher than that 3.58 average. Swift ranked 52 out of 59 qualified backs in yards after contact in 2023.
And when it comes to rushing yards over expected, Barkley averaged 1.12 per attempt in Week 1. Last year, Swift averaged -.29.
It’s not like Barkley simply benefitted from finally playing behind a better line in Week 1. Sure, that will help this season. But Barkley in the opener created for himself too. This was an area where the Eagles felt like they needed an upgrade; and through one game, it appears like they got it.
Now, it’s about making sure that advantage is still in their favor for the entire season.
“That's our job as coaches to manage that throughout the week during practice,” Sirianni said. “Games will take care of themselves as they go. There will naturally be a game where we throw it 50 times or Kenny (Gainwell) or Will (Shipley) will have a couple carries. So that will take care of itself throughout the year. As of right now, we handle that through our practice.”
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